Watching Works: MacIver’s Election Integrity Push Is Forcing Accountability in Green Bay and Milwaukee

Watching Works

Accountable government does not happen because officials promise it. It happens because citizens stay educated, stay involved, and keep watching. That is why MacIver exists––and the work we have been doing on election integrity is making a difference.

On August 31, the Wisconsin Elections Commission took up two high-profile issues MacIver has doggedly covered: Green Bay’s repeated duplicate-ballot mailings and Milwaukee’s August 11 central-count reporting failure. The public pressure brought by MacIver and others ensured WEC did not bury either item. That is the point. When the public is paying attention, officials know they cannot treat sloppy ballot handling as a private paperwork problem.

Green Bay: Accountability must precede the final decision

Item E was the Green Bay duplicate-ballot investigation and the related complaint, Sipes v. Jeffreys (EL 26-12).

The facts in this matter are not a mystery. In April, Clerk Celestine Jeffreys reprinted a duplicate batch of 152 labels that had not been filed away. Before the August primary, labels went to the city’s own Print Shop, and an unknown number of duplicate ballots were again printed and mailed.

WEC staff told the commissioners that the Green Bay clerk’s office answered as fully as the facts allow. The root problem was reprinting without verifying that labels were actually missing. WEC Attorney Supervisor Angela O’Brien Sharpe said some facts “appear to just be unknowable.”

Accurate elections are the foundation of a free democracy, because if the count is wrong, the consent of the governed is only a guess.

The Commission did not take a final yes/no vote on whether Jeffreys broke the law. It directed staff to draft a proposed decision letter and final order under Wis. Stat. § 5.06(6) on whether she acted contrary to law and/or abused her discretion and bring the issue back for a vote on Wednesday, September 9.

The city now requires a second person’s approval before any reprint, and if a printing error is found, the whole set is discarded and logged.

Milwaukee: A delay, a trust problem, and a paper trail still due

Item F was about Milwaukee’s August 11 primary. Staff at Milwaukee’s Central Count downloaded audit logs instead of unofficial results from 5 of 9 tabulators, delaying the posting of 27,187 absentee totals by about an hour.

Milwaukee is supposed to post the August 11 central-count tabulator audit logs, the EL-104s (the election-night paper log that poll inspectors fill out at a polling place or central-count site), and the precinct-processed reports by September 4, along with a training plan so unofficial results are exported correctly next time. That public file should also include the cast vote records (the date- and time-stamped record of every tabulated ballot), not only the audit logs.

The Commission voted 6–0 to wait for the promised uploads and bring the item back after September 4.

Why this matters

These two items are different cities and different failures. They share one lesson. Green Bay reprinted labels without a second check. Milwaukee pulled the wrong report off 5 of the 9 tabulators. In both cases, WEC staff, commissioners, clerks, and city attorneys are now answering questions in writing because the public, and groups like the MacIver Institute applied pressure for answers, corrective measures, and accountability.

That is how accountable government works. Not with a press release that says, “trust us.” With citizens who read the agenda, demand the logs, file the complaints, and keep showing up after the election is over. Officials know they are being watched. Not just by one institute. By voters who expect one ballot, one count, and a paper trail they can see.

That watching has to continue through September 9 on Green Bay, through the September 4 Milwaukee uploads, and through November. Educated, involved citizens are not a nuisance in the process. They are the process.